Can't transfer files from Mac---> external hard-drive

Hi Steven

My guess is that the drive was formatted on a PC as NTFS.

Your Mac can read NTFS partitions but they cannot write to them.

I suggest you move the data off the drive and reformat it as exFAT.

Drive Partition and Format

1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.

2. After Disk Utility loads select the external hard drive (this is the out-dented entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the Disk Utility main window.

3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the Disk Utility main window.

5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.

6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Yes. You have two options.

1. Reformat the drive to FAT32. Note that this filesystem is not fully compatible with OS X.
2. Install a utility that provides r/w capability for OS X using an NTFS formatted drive - NTFS for Mac.

Please select the disk in Finder & get info on it…

In Finder select 'Go menu > Computer'

Select the hard disk that is failing to copy onto.

Select 'File > Get info'.

In the panel that appears look for the 'format' (under General), please post that info here.

I suspect you have an NTFS volume - OS X requires additional software to write to that filesystem type. You may have updated OS X & the old software may be disabled.

You either need third-party software to be able to write to an NTFS formatted disk or you need to reformat the disk to FAT32 on a PC, then you can repartition the disk for use on a Mac or leave at FAT32 should you need to use it on both a Mac and a PC.

It's up to you how you handle this. You can backup the disk (Windows is probably easiest, considering the format) and reformat to exFAT. OS X & Windows should be able to read & write to that.

An alternative is to install OSXFuse & ONE additional plugin to add read write support to OS X.

http://osxfuse.github.io/

These plugins add NTFS support to OSXFuse, you only need one.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ntfsosx/

Or

http://www.tuxera.com/community/open-source-ntfs-3g/

Or

http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/

You can also just use…

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/download.html

OSXFuse can allow read & write access in OS X. Personally I'd use a 'native' way e.g. reformat to exFAT if possible. The various filesystem plugins are making low level changes & have the ability to damage the NTFS filesystem - have good backups!

I'd also recommend you look at what is installed on your Mac - you may have MacFuse or an older plugin that used to give you read & write access to NTFS. Old items should be removed before you attempt to use newer file system plugins. I think the older plugins are often listed in System Preferences as third party panels.

Steven_Gonzales wrote:

I don't know if it's stupid but right now i'm transferring all my files from my hard drive to my mac in order to erase the hard drive and save my files. Is this gonna mess with my files in any way?

Thanks again everyone.

No

Thanks Kappy!

Was trying to type it all out.

Steven_Gonzales wrote:

Will i be able to use the hard drive on both Mac and PC?

Yes. If you format as exFAT it will be 100% compatible with both Wndows and OS X.